The present invention relates to a locking mechanism and system. More in particular it relates to a locking mechanism and system for securing a pot or container containing a plant in a tray enabled to hold a plurality of pots or containers.
Potted plants are sold at retail outlets in containers that are held in a tray. In general a tray may hold two or more containers such as a pot, each container containing at least one potted plant. A consumer may buy a tray with a plurality of plants to replant the plants into a garden. A tray may contain a plurality of the same species of plant, such as perennials. It is known that potential buyers compare the visual appearance of plants located in a single tray. It is unavoidable that some plants on the tray are bigger and appear to be healthier than other plants. Potential buyers often switch what they believe to be one or more less desirable plants on the tray with what are believed to be healthier plants on another tray to create, what often wrongfully is believed to be a better tray of potted plants. In many cases the potential buyer will just pick a pot from a tray without properly replacing it.
This exchange and/or removal of pots on trays is often unwarranted and does in fact not create a better quality tray. The quality of all plants on a tray is often guaranteed by the seller, and what potential buyers see as a lesser quality of plant is in most cases a natural variation in for instance size and appearance. The difference of appearance at this stage of the life of a plant may indicate little about the viability of a plant once it is re-planted into garden soil. It is well known in the industry that once correctly replanted most if not all of the potted plants will be viable and that for instance appearance at this early stage says little about later performance of a plant.
An unfortunate result of this exchanging of plants from trays is that many trays are left with an incomplete number of pots or are left with for instance only relatively smaller sized plants. Those trays are ignored by potential buyers and often end up as waste. It is known in the industry that this consumer behavior may leave up to 25% of the plants that are sold in trays as waste. Such waste is unjustified as the majority of the thus discarded potted plants were completely viable products.
It is desirable to change the behavior of potential buyers by making it difficult to remove a pot from a tray to create an opening to insert another pot removed from another tray. Such prevention of removing a pot or container from a tray will contribute to substantially reducing the number of discarded plants and unjustified waste.
Accordingly, novel and improved methods and devices to lock or to secure a container with a plant in a tray containing a plurality of potted plants are required.